Read U.S. State Op-Eds on Ocean-Climate Leadership: California is Making Strides Addressing Ocean Acidification (June 14) by California State Senator John Laird. What the Chesapeake Bay is Trying to Tell Us (June 8) by Maryland Department of Environment Secretary, Serene McIlwain. Why Florida Has to Lead on Water, Resilience and Climate (May 24) by Florida State Representative Anna Eskamani.
This month, global leaders are convening at two major international conferences dedicated to advancing ocean and climate action. London Climate Action Week will bring together tens of thousands of participants across hundreds of events, while the 11th Our Ocean Conference in Kenya is drawing governments, island nations, scientists, businesses, and nonprofit organizations to Mombasa to advance commitments on ocean health, pollution, biodiversity, climate change, food security, and coastal resilience.
The timing matters. The ocean is central to climate stability, food security, coastal economies, and community safety. It absorbs heat and carbon, supports fisheries and livelihoods, and shapes weather and climate patterns around the world. Protecting it requires science-based policy, sustained monitoring, and long-term public investment.
For the Our Ocean Conference, it’s the first time Africa has hosted it, and governments, island nations, academics, businesses, and NGOs are in Mombasa to discuss pollution, biodiversity loss, climate change, food security, and other issues. For over a decade, this annual event has been a stage showcase for U.S. global leadership on these issues. Since its launch, the conference has helped mobilize more than 2,900 commitments worth roughly $169 billion worldwide. This year, however, the federal picture is more troubling. While the Trump administration is marking National Ocean Month, its recent actions point in the opposite direction for science-based ocean and climate leadership:
Rolling back protections for marine national monuments in the Pacific by opening these areas to commercial fishing;
Dismantling a network that collects essential ocean data to monitor marine ecosystems, currents and coastal environments;
Requiring a new level of agency review over federal grant funds, which essentially formalizes the politicization of U.S. scientific research; and,
These actions are not isolated policy choices. Taken together, they weaken the systems the country relies on to understand environmental change, manage natural resources, protect coastal communities, and make evidence-based decisions rather than ideological ones.
At the same time, a more encouraging story is unfolding at the state level. Across the country, what is encouraging right now in the U.S. is the way states are stepping up and taking action to advance climate and ocean protection. They are working with Tribes, coastal communities, municipal governments, and businesses from coast to coast to advance ocean-based climate solutions.
California State Senator John Laird, for example, notes in the Sacramento Bee, that California is Making Strides Addressing Ocean Acidification (June 14). His state’s work to reduce carbon emissions and keep excess carbon out of the ocean is just one example of how leaders on the state level are documenting and responding to ocean and coastal acidification and generating best practices for science and policy response.
In Maryland, as the state’s Department of Environment Secretary, Serene McIlwain writes in the Baltimore Sun (What the Chesapeake Bay is Trying to Tell Us, June 8), efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay are yielding key lessons about the interconnection between our economic and environmental health. She cites the planting of living shorelines, which bolster coastlines and improve water quality, with downstream benefits for the State’s fisheries and tourism economies.
And in Florida, State Representative Anna Eskamani writes in the Orlando Sentinel (Why Florida Has to Lead on Water, Resilience and Climate, May 24) about the state's severe weather and flooding challenges. The “Resilient Florida” program has already committed over $1 billion to hundreds of projects to make the state’s coastal communities, beaches, and other areas more resilient to climate change. It is making tangible investments to repair seawalls, bolster shorelines, restore wetlands, improve stormwater management, and more.
It’s heartening to see action on the state level, and there’s so much more to do. People all over the U.S. and around the world are experiencing the fallout from climate change and ocean acidification, which threaten seafood economies, coastal livelihoods, food security, and jobs. And for a decade now, U.S. states have been collaborating through the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification. It’s the only government-led initiative in the world that outlines specific science needs for effective management and policy response to acidification. We now have over 20 countries and 18 subnational governments in the Alliance, and we are calling on more U.S. states to step up and join this important effort.
As federal leadership becomes less reliable, state leadership becomes even more important. More U.S. states should join this effort, not only to protect their own waters and communities, but to help ensure that ocean and climate policy remains grounded in science, accountability, and public benefit.
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About the Author
Jessie Turner is the Executive Director of the International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification (OA Alliance). A voluntary initiative of national and subnational governments, the OA Alliance works to raise ambition for climate action and transform the global response to climate-ocean change.
As Executive Director, Jessie sets the strategic direction of the OA Alliance and develops and carries out annual programming, including contributions to international convenings. She also establishes partnerships across a variety of disciplines and coalitions, deploys communications strategies across multiple scales, and supports members in the development of practicable ocean acidification adaptation and resilience strategies.
Jessie served as lead facilitator to the Pacific Coast Collaborative (PCC)’s Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Working Group between 2014 and 2023. The PCC is a collaboration between the U.S. states of California, Oregon, Washington, and the Canadian Province of British Columbia working together on climate issues that impact the North American West Coast region.
Jessie has 15 years of experience working in public policy development, advocacy, and stakeholder engagement at local to international scales. She has worked on wide-ranging issues, including affordable homeownership, healthcare, energy efficiency, food waste, climate, and marine policy.
